Most agree that San Francisco is one of the country’s best food cities, with a pleasing mix of both historic and nouvelle attractions, ethnic eats and home-grown specialties. I recently went on a restaurant-hopping expedition there—stopping at both venerable places, middle-age places, and brand-spanking-new places—and I never had a bad bite of food in nearly a week of constant eating.

Here are the nine best things I tasted, in order of increasing deliciousness.